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At Syracuse and Columbia, students are protesting commencement speakers from the financial sector. It’s shades of the 1960s at Syracuse University in upstate New York, as graduating seniors protest the school’s invitation to James Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., to speak at commencement on May 16. Leading the “Take Back Commencement” protests is Students for a Democratic Society, that Sixties warhorse group responsible for disrupting campuses across the country in the name of getting us out of Vietnam. The demonstrators have been banging pots and pans, chanting “Power to the people!” and staging a rage dance...

I love to share with family and friends the joy of watching their children graduate, but I find myself increasingly refusing to attend or even walking out in the middle of the ceremonies. It's not just that these ceremonies are often physically uncomfortable--one has to dress appropriately and sit on terribly designed folding chairs for a long time in what is often hot, humid weather. That is endurable. What is not, however, is that the speakers seem to all be rather radical posturers who view this not as an opportunity to share some welcome insights on the meaning of the...

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Hampton. Thank you, Class of 2010. (Applause.) Please, everybody, please have a seat. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you! THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) That's why I'm here. I love you guys. Good morning, everybody. AUDIENCE: Good morning. THE PRESIDENT: To all the mothers in the house: As somebody who is surrounded by women in the White House -- (laughter) -- grew up surrounded by women, let me take a moment just to say thank you for all that you put up with each and every...

Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Please be seated. AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you! THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Laughter.) It is great to be here in the Big House -- (applause) -- and so may I say, "Go Blue!" (Applause.) I thought I'd go for the cheap applause line to start things off. (Laughter.) Good afternoon, President Coleman, the Board of Trustees, to faculty, parents, family and friends of the class of 2010. (Applause.) Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the honor of being a part of it. (Applause.) Let...

President Barack Obama is not famous for a stoic ability to take any amount of criticism, let alone the level heaped upon anyone who is fortunate enough to win the job he has and wanted. So it really comes as no surprise that he used his commencement speech at the University of Michigan today to address his critics instead of the graduates. The surprise, albeit a mild one, was that he tried to use the founding principles of the country to do it.

He may be a hero on Wall Street but the JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon is seriously uncool in the eyes of students. There's revolt in the air at Syracuse University in upstate New York where Dimon is due to give a graduation address next month. Disgruntled students complain that the university's invitation to Dimon amounts to an attempt to use their commencement ceremony (graduation to us Brits) as a tool to rebuild the public image of the disgraced banking industry. And they point out that while JP Morgan coins in record profits, the credit crunch has left many students...

“I am honored by the invitation to address you on this august occasion. It’s about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you’ll have enough smoke blown up your bloomers today. And you can bet your tassels I’m not here to impress the faculty and administration.

President Barack Obama has been announced as the Commencement speaker for the spring graduation at my alma mater, the University of Michigan. President Obama will receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree.

Baby Boomer Apology Tour by: Deborah Lambert, July 15, 2009 When faced with periods of gloom and doom, there are two ways to respond. Ignore it—or dwell on it. As noted in previous columns, many commencement speakers for the class of 2009 chose Option #2. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that “graduation ceremonies have become collective airings of guilt and grief,” adding that “it’s now chic for boomers to apologize for their generation’s crimes.” GOP governors like Mitch Daniels, R-Ind, told Butler University seniors that his generation was “just plain selfish.” NY Timeser Tom Friedman compared boomers to...

Commencement Justice by: Deborah Lambert, June 18, 2009 Just when you’d given up on the quality of this year’s commencement speakers, right triumphs in unexpected places. Take Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg Maryland, where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was this year’s commencement speaker. It all started when Justice Thomas, a football diehard who’s married to a Nebraskan, ran into one of Quince Orchard’s top jocks, Terrence Stephens, on a return flight from a U. of Nebraska recruiting session. He began a conversation that amazed Stephens and his fellow student Jason Ankrah, because “this guy knew so much...

Actor and Christian Stephen Baldwin said he felt God lead him to speak at Trinity Christian Academy’s graduation. “I just want to convey the importance of following Christ,” he said. “I am blessed for one specific reason. “I know for sure I am saved and born again and the spirit of the living God dwells within me.” Baldwin’s spiritual journey started several years ago when his Brazilian housekeeper told him that it was prophesied to her, in Brazil, that she would lead her future American employer to Christ. Baldwin’s wife became a born-again Christian first and then Baldwin followed his...

Do you remember anything that he/she said?

To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To a community organizer, every citizen looks like a victim entitled to someone else’s money. The Obama campaign and administration has proved that again and again. But both the president and his wife put a fine point on it with commencement addresses this month. (Joe Biden also gave one, but it’s a safe bet that nobody – Joe least of all – knew what he was talking about.) To the Obamas, grads should opt for the virtue of what Michelle has called “helping” careers, and eschew the vice...

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will give the commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University on Thursday. That Pelosi, a liberal Democrat, is speaking at the school should come as no surprise as a new report shows that liberals dominate as speakers at the top colleges and universities in America while only five recognizable conservatives have been chosen as commencement speakers this year. One conservative was even dis-invited as a commencement speaker after his invitation to speak became public, according to the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), which released its report on Wednesday. “For the past 16 years--the time period...

Notre Dame, The President’s Perspective According to Reuters News Agency, the following quote was given by the President to the University of Notre Dame in his Commencement Address. “SOUTH BEND, Indiana (Reuters) - President Barack Obama urged both sides in the abortion debate on Sunday to pursue a "fair-minded" discussion as he sought to quell a firestorm over his invitation to speak at Notre Dame, a premier U.S. Catholic university. The President has proposed his vision of a fair minded approach when he signed off on the confiscation of tax monies to fund abortions on an International Scale. The Bible...

Notre DameÂ’s Kabuki Dance with Obama and the Culture of Death: The Keynesian Kenyan from Kansas Meets the Kantians Notre DameÂ’s Kabuki dance with Obama and the culture of death moves into full swing this weekend. Everyone should watch the steps of this tango very carefully as the Keynesian Kenyan from Kansas boogies down with the Kantians for some Transcendental Twister on the South Bend campus. Although some students and professors will boycott the commencement lovefest and attend a prayer vigil at the Lourdes Grotto on campus instead, the damage to Notre Dame will still be done and observers of...

President Barack Obama speaks at the Arizona State University commencement ceremony at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., Wednesday, May 13, 2009.

SANTA PAULA -- His Eminence Marc Cardinal Ouellet will preside over commencement ceremonies at Thomas Aquinas College on Saturday May 16, 2009. The Archbishop of Quebec, Canada, Cardinal Ouellet will serve as principal celebrant and homilist of the Baccalaureate Mass, and he will deliver the commencement address. By resolution of Thomas Aquinas College’s Board of Governors, Cardinal Ouellet will also be awarded the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion, the college’s highest honor, established by its Board of Governors in 1975. The resolution is given in recognition that “His Eminence Marc Cardinal Ouellet has shown an exemplary loyalty and devotion to the...

DC Commencement Circuit Bethany Stotts, April 30, 2009 Happy graduates are about to go off to seek their fortunes in a not-so-friendly job market. But before they can pursue careers in business, writing, science and other fields, they must pass one last indoctrination hurdle: the commencement speech. “If your university is like the majority of schools in the country, it is a bastion of liberalism. It is more than likely that your university has invited a leftist commencement speaker to have the honor of addressing your graduating class,” Bryan Bernys, National Field Director at the Leadership Institute, recently wrote on...

The Franking Privilege by: Bethany Stotts, April 23, 2009 Frankly scandalized: that’s how some American University seniors felt when they learned that their 2009 commencement speaker would be none other than Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). Congressman Frank is scheduled to speak to the graduating class of AU’s School of Public Service. “Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has a record as a key player in our current economic crisis, which is almost as offensive as his endless refusal to accept responsibility for it--hardly the marks of a public servant,” wrote four AU students in an April 16 op-ed to the AU Eagle....